Harold Meyerson’s piece in The American Prospect should terrify Republicans. He details the recent disintegration of the GOP in California, and it is astonishing to read. Republican registration is now below 30% in the Golden State, and the Democrats have supermajorities in the state senate and assembly. Asian-Americans, who make up a healthy 11% of the state’s electorate, voted for Obama 79%-21%. Voters 29 and younger voted for Obama 71%-29%. Yet, the Republicans haven’t shown any signs of adapting. Look at how they did with women:
The racial and political recomposition of the California electorate is now reflected in the racial and political recomposition of the state’s elected officials. If Indian American Ami Bera holds his lead over Republican Representative Dan Lungern in a Sacramento-area congressional district, the 38 California Democrats in the next Congress will include five Asian Americans and nine Latinos, as well as three African Americans. The 15-member Republican delegation will include no minorities—and, astonishingly, no women. Of the 38 Democrats, 18 are women. Not surprisingly, Obama carried women voters in California by a margin of 64 percent to 34 percent.
In California, the Republican Party is barely more relevant than it was in the Jim Crow south. It has thoroughly alienated every subsection of the electorate that isn’t white and male and suburban or rural. And California Republicans obviously saw this coming, but they did absolutely nothing to prevent it from happening. That does not bode well for the national party.
